Hierarchy of Needs for Online Connection Building
I would recommend reading this first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_needs
As with our ability to function as humans, people need certain criteria fulfilled in order to accept a new connection. Online, we think of connection requests as so lifeless because they’re merely the ability to view information about me. However, the assumption that a request can only be binary is flawed. Individuals decide to build connections based on a lifecycle of the relationship. We progressively decide to elevate people from acquaintances to friends or vise versa. It is a series of events and interactions that cause a connection to exist and persist.
How do we manage this online? Well in order for relationships to be built, there need to be several opportunities for a connection to be strengthened or weakened. Relationships/connections are developed because both parties decide to take part in the connection. By providing opportunities to measure the strength of a relationship and offer ways to change the strength of the bond, connection building in the real world can be emulated online. Currently, the act of “sharing” things on the web have little to no incentive — shared items are what I call vanity currency. Shared items can become more valuable to both parties if they have some meaning to the strength of a relationship. In addition, showing people the reasons and actions that have caused a relationship to become stronger, will allow them to keep track of the relationships they’ve cultivated more readily.
I need to do some more thinking as to what the hierarchy of needs for new connections is, but at least its safe to say that there are such needs and those needs can be represented online.